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Italian telephone company Fastweb launched Chili TV, a broadband video-on-demand service offering Web surfers a combination of free movies, rentals, and titles that can be purchased. 

Ten Hollywood studios renewed a marketing campaign organized by major cable operators looking to tout their video-on-demand platform as best way for viewers watch new movies. 

The studios and cable MSOs are spending $10 million in cash and cable ad inventory on the campaign, which has the tag line "Push It," from the song by rap group Salt-N-Pepa. Last year, the cable MSOs and studios spent $30 million on a similar campaign called, "The Video Store Just Moved In."

Augmented reality specialist, Total Immersion, recently contacted [itvt] to let us know about some of the interactive AR applications it has completed over the past few months. The apps are all triggered by holding up a movie or album's packaging in front of a Webcam, which allows a hidden visual code to launch the app:

Paramount Digital Entertainment (PDE) has announced plans to distribute an original interactive thriller, entitled "Circle of 8" and produced by Milchan/Van Eyssen (MVE), which will integrate branding from Pepsi-Cola's Mountain Dew product and which is slated to debut in October exclusively on MySpace.

ZapMyTV--a company that is developing a "family-friendly" social broadband video portal that it says will broadcast live cable programming via the Internet across multiple social networking platforms and will also provide access to a range of theatrical motion picture content on an a la carte or subscription VOD basis (note: the company's "Interactive Content Environment"--or "ICE"--platform, which is currently in early beta, is slated to launch commercially later this year)--announced Wednesday that it has signed a license agreement with Paramount Digital Entertainment. The company claims that this is the first of several key strategic alliances with entertainment companies that it is set to announce in the near future.

Earlier this month, Viacom, its Paramount Pictures unit, MGM Studios
and Lionsgate announced that they have formed a joint venture that will
launch a premium VOD service and linear-TV channel in the fall of
2009. According to the companies, the venture will have access to
Paramount and Paramount Vantage titles released theatrically on or
after January 1st, 2008, and MGM, United Artists and Lionsgate titles
released theatrically on or after January 1st, 2009: it will have exclusive
access during the pay-television window to such recent and upcoming
films as "Iron Man," "Star Trek," "Cloverfield," "Shutter Island," "Love
Guru" and "Valkyrie" and various currently-in-production titles,
including new installments of the "Robocop" series, the companies say.